Snare
by L. Sith
Summary: I am Misao Makamachi, an almost eighteen year old woman, and do I have a man to snare or do I have a man to snare ... Aoshi, Misao, Saitoh, Tokio AU
1. First Day

Author's note: Comments and criticisms of any kind are great appreciated. Please nitpick. My thanks.

Disclaimer: RK, and all characters thereof, belong to their perspective owners. This is not for profit.

Special thanks to Kamorgana for beta-reading.

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Chapter 1: First Day

I am Misao Makamachi, an almost eighteen-year-old woman, and do I have a man to snare or do I have a man to snare?

My obsession could trace its beginning to the end of last summer. School had just started after another boring and hot and humid "vacation" that I vegetated through, so what else was new? I got up half an hour late that morning, skipped what promised to be a really yummy breakfast, and raced to Jefferson High in my spanking new, shiny red, convertible - my sweet sixteen present from Jiya, and what a sweet piece it was too. Just the color I wanted. I had my eyes on that car six months before I even got my driver's permit. And I would have had it on my birthday too if I hadn't failed my driving test that day. And the five subsequent ones. It was unfair how difficult the driving tests were in Virginia, why couldn't the state government understand that teenagers needed wheels too? So, anyways, I finally got my license over the summer, after I broke into tears for failing my seventh road test, all because I had ran a stop sign. But the examiner was such a compassionate person, he let me pass - what a wonderful man, God bless his soul!

So anyways, I pulled into the school parking lot, first day of the new school year, and nearly slammed into a black BMW, which was almost unavoidable since it was parked too close to the spot I wanted. But my fast reflexes saved me! All that karate practice had finally paid off. And after three attempts at maneuvering into that tiny space between the BMW and the white line, I gave up and decided to take up two parking spaces instead. I was probably the last person to get to school anyways, so who was going to miss the extra space?

And did I mention that I was late? There was no time to waste. So, I grabbed my backpack from the passenger seat and sprinted all the way to campus - it was more like a marathon, considering how far I had to park. And I got onto the campus exactly when the bell rang.

Which meant I had totally missed my math class.

Well, I didn't really "miss it" miss it. Except for brainiacs like Tokio, who needed higher math anyways?

Nonetheless, I did not look forward to being stuck in detention for not showing up at my first period class. And if I didn't hurry before the bell rang again, I'd get another detention for being tardy for my second period class, and that would mean I would be stuck in detention for two afternoons in a row. My social life would have ended before it ever began. So in the interest of social life preservation, I dashed through the front gates of the school with a speed that would have broken Olympic records. I waved an airy "good morning" to the guards as I screeched by - those people had seen me late so many times in the previous semesters, we were on first name basis, and they no longer bothered to check my student ID. And with those few precious seconds I managed to save, I made it to my second class just when the bell shrieked overhead. I quickly slid into a seat behind my best friend, Tokio, and tried to look innocuous. 

"You are late for school." Tokio whispered to me without turning around.

And I didn't bother denying it. For some reason, she always knew when I was late, even though we had different first period classes. "It's not my fault. If I live on campus -"

"You'd still be late."

Which was true, but I was not about to admit it. For those of us that didn't board at the school, our favorite excuse for tardiness was "traffic". And as everyone knew, an excuse didn't need to be true to work, it merely had to sound good.

"So did I miss anything?" I whispered back in an attempt to change the subject.

"Yes, you missed your first period class."

"Aack!" I grumbled. "I'm trying to change the subject here," which Tokio undoubtedly noticed. Nothing ever seemed to get past her, and if I didn't know better, I would swear that her parents worked for the CIA. "Did I miss any good gossip?" I clarified, sounding a little more excited than I wanted to. I had meant to play cool - in a doomed attempt to change my image - but swapping rumors gave me such a thrill, and it was the only highlight to my dreary days.

"I heard that Yumi got another nose job over the summer." Tokio said quietly.

And I gasped. My gaze automatically drifted to the subject of our gossip, but the snob queen just sat there, looking no different than before - gorgeous and sculptured, certainly - but no different. "Her new nose job looks the same as her old one."

Tokio shrugged. "Maybe it was a reconstructive surgery, after her pyromaniac of a boyfriend burned her nose off."

I had to struggle hard not to laugh out loud. Tokio always had such clever quips about Yumi, I wondered if she came up with them on the spot or if she had them all written down beforehand. The rivalry between them was intense, and it had existed for as long as I could remember, all through middle school, and knowing those two, it had probably started in kindergarten. But what I couldn't figure out was why. Except for French and lunch, those two had no classes and no activities in common. Tokio showed no interest in becoming a cheerleader or an actress, and Yumi had never ran for the student council or tried to be the valedictorian, so what did those two have to compete over?

Nonetheless, they competed: in clothing, in shoes, in cars, in beauty, in popularity. In everything.

But for my part, I didn't care much about Yumi, or her plastic surgeries - she had had so many of them, it was no longer news worthy. So I fished for other juicy tidbits instead. "Anything else? Anything else?"

"Well ..." Tokio said, and I eagerly clung to her every word. There were no good rumors in this school that Tokio didn't know. She was my best informant. "We have two new students in our class this year, and one of the them is said to have a juvenile record."

Which, to me, was no shocker, several other students in the school did too, for various misdemeanors - and you would be surprised how many different kinds of misdemeanors there was out there. And from the looks of it, the school had expanded its collection of delinquents, alcoholics, and potheads. Oh joy. "So what did they get busted for?"

"Murder."

Murder?!

Was the school trying to get all of us killed? I thought that this place was supposed to be high security! When did it start harboring felons?!

"What the ...?" I yelped out in surprise, and then belatedly realized that we were in middle of class.

I quickly swallowed rest of my sentence, but the teacher had already turned her Medusa like gaze towards me, and I could feel myself being turned into stone.

Oh no.

I knew I had to say something semi-intelligent or risk getting another detention for my outburst. So I quickly racked my brain. But since I had not paid any attention to anything from the moment I walked in, I had to struggle hard to recall from my schedule, what class I was supposed to be attending.

"French." Tokio hid the tip-off beneath a cough while looking busy with her note taking.

I quickly recovered my wits. "Pouvez-vous répéter la dernière phrase, je vous prie?" I said to the teacher in my best French, while putting on a huge innocent looking smile to throw off any suspicion.

And that seemed to have satisfied Ms. Medusa, she repeated her previous sentence like I had requested, and the class grinded on. But I wasn't interested. All I wanted to know was more details on the murderers, and I wanted to know them now! But instead, I had to stare at the clock on the classroom wall and wait. I really couldn't risk talking in class again. The "Little Miss Perfect" would kill me if I marred her perfect record by getting her caught and stuck in detention. Well, Tokio wouldn't really kill me, but she might stop talking to me, which would be a billion times worse!

Besides, I didn't want to get another detention either.

So I waited.

Then waited some more.

And waited ...

Waited ...

And after ten minutes of brain numbing boredom, the bell finally rang. I immediately pounced on Tokio, which also seemed to be the intention of several of the boys in class, but I had the advantage of proximity. "Come on, tell me who they are and who they murdered."

"There is no 'they'." Tokio said. "It's two unrelated people, and the rumors are so wild in this case, I wouldn't count on their reliability."

But any rumor that Tokio cared to share usually had a grain of truth in it, and I couldn't let such a juicy piece of information slip by me. However, before I could question her further, one of the boys slithered up to us. "Can I walk you to your next class?" He asked Tokio with that big puppy eyed look.

And Tokio turned to the dork and smiled one of her devastatingly perfect smiles. "Why don't you help me with my books and I'll see you in Bio in a few minutes?" She batted her long dark eyelashes at him and I could almost see him melt.

How did Tokio always manage to have that kind of effect on men? Her parents must have had trained her from birth. Looking like "Miss America" was probably a prerequisite for being the daughter of the former governor of Virginia and the current Secretary of Interior. I was jealous! I had wanted to have her poise ever since we were children. Why couldn't I be born the daughter of a politician? No, instead I had to be the daughter of a bunch of ...

Oops, I'm not at liberty to discuss my family's line of work ... no, I mean ... my family are all potato farmers from Idaho. 

Moving on ...

"I'll see you at lunch then?" Tokio asked as she got up to leave for her next class.

"Ok, save me a seat." I said. And right before Tokio waltzed out of the classroom doors, under the escort of her knights in shinning armor, I remembered my previous line of questioning. "What are their names?"

Tokio turned to me, with her green eyes full of confusion, "Whose names?"

What did she mean whose names? Hadn't she been paying any attention to our previous conversation? "Our two new classmates." I hinted.

"Oh, Aoshi Shinomori and Haijime Saitoh." Tokio tossed the names over her shoulder right before she disappeared amongst the crowd.

Which left me alone, in the now deserted room, deeply in thought about: politics, family connections, crime and punishment, conspiracy theories, and other possible reasons for the school's tolerance of murderers.

And before I knew it, the bell rang overhead again, signaling the start of the next class.

Oh no! I was going to be late again!

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Chapter 2: Life on the Run 


	2. Life on the Run

Author's note: Thanks to everyone for the comments. A short note on this story: "Snare" is told in an unreliable-first-person-narrative style, and Misao has some awareness of the audience.  
  
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Chapter 2: Life on the Run  
  
I sprinted through the school hallways like a cheetah racing away from a prairie fire, all the while dodging and evading stray teachers and hallway monitors.   
  
I could not, and must not, get caught for being late, or for wandering the hallways during class time. Not twice in a day!   
  
Tick, tock, tick, tock ...  
  
My internal clock counted downwards.   
  
T minus three minutes until Kondo sensei made the roll call, and I still had 50 yards to go and a karate-uniform to change into.  
  
Why did they have to put the gym in the furthest corner of the school?! The teachers did that on purpose so students would always be late and get stuck with cleaning gym floors for the rest of our lives!   
  
What an evil plan! I would not allow it to succeed.  
  
T minus two minutes and thirty seconds between forced labor and me.  
  
I tore around the corner and burst into the girls' locker room. Without slowing down, I twisted my blue backpack off and flung it across the now empty locker room. The bag slid smoothly across the concrete floor and stopped beneath one of the benches.   
  
T minus two minutes.  
  
I started yanking off my black t-shirt, while running half blind towards my locker.   
  
I tossed aside the shirt and jerked open the metal door.   
  
Only to stare into its empty contents.  
  
Oh darn! I had completely forgotten to bring my karate uniform and safety gear.   
  
Aaaaaaah, how could I be so forgetful?  
  
I wanted to kick myself. But since I couldn't, I kicked the locker instead.   
  
Bang! The metallic boom reverberated throughout the vacant locker room, but my action did not otherwise cause any karate uniforms to magically appear.   
  
T minus one minute.   
  
Left with no other choice, I started pulling my t-shirt back on and fervently prayed that I wouldn't stand out too much in my black shirt and shorts.   
  
Among a sea of white uniforms?   
  
Yeah right!   
  
But being the only female in class, I had zero hope of borrowing someone else's uniform anyways.  
  
T minus thirty seconds.  
  
I raced towards the indoor gym and prayed that it would be my lucky day.  
  
To my surprise, it was.  
  
Not only did I arrive at the "dojo" floors with whole five seconds to spare, there were two new students in class who also had no uniforms. Furthermore, those two nice strangers did me the great favor of occupying Kondo-sensei's entire attention with paperwork.   
  
Making them too busy to realize my existence.   
  
Yes! I did my little victory dance.  
  
Which ended up attracting everyone else's attention, including that of our current karate-team captain - Soushi Okita's. But I wasn't worried, Soushi was cool, and he would never rat me out.   
  
He waved, and I ran to join him on the mats at the center of the basketball court, or a.k.a. the dojo floor. To blend in, I waved my hands in the air all the while, pretending to do jumping jacks. My actions were probably unnecessary, since no one else, except Soushi, was doing the warm up exercises like we were supposed to.  
  
Hey, whatever. The important thing was: no gym floor cleaning duties for me!  
  
Lucky!  
  
"Good morning," Soushi smiled up at me, "no uniform today?"   
  
"I forgot." I made a goofy face.  
  
Whereas the old captain would have chewed me out for it, Soushi's smile only grew wider. He never got upset with my forgetfulness. But then, I had never known him to get upset about anything, not that I wanted to be around when he did. You know what people say: it is always the quiet ones.  
  
"Who are the new students?" I asked Soushi, immediately getting down to my intelligence gathering, even though Soushi and I hadn't yet gotten a chance to catch up on our summers. It wasn't because I didn't care about Soushi, but I needed information like I needed air. I simply couldn't help myself. I was born and bred into that type of behavior!   
  
But Soushi just smiled again.   
  
However, before he could answer, Kondo-sensei blew the whistle, and we all dutifully lined up at the edge of the floor mats.  
  
We bowed to Kondo-sensei and he bowed back before starting to speak, "We have two new students with us this semester, both juniors," he gestured towards the two boys standing next to him, "let's give them a warm welcome."  
  
As usual, that consisted of no more than a smattering of half-hearted handclaps. Considering how few transfer students we see in this school, I would have expected a more enthusiastic response. But that didn't matter - I planned to make up for the rest of the class.   
  
So I cheered and applauded as loudly as I could, I even threw in a few hoots for good measure. My enthusiasm immediately drew the attention of the two new boys, and they turned their heads towards me, almost as if in sync, and with a slow motion type of action that was so cute, I wanted to ... to ... to ...  
  
Shiver.   
  
When had the room gotten so cold? I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to ward off the sudden chill. The twin presences of the new students loomed like black holes in a distance, sucking away all light and warmth. So bitter. So unforgiving. Dressed entirely in tones of blacks and dark blues, they reminded me of grim reapers searching for souls of the damned.  
  
I tried to break away. But their gazes refused to leave me. They held onto me with a force so primal, a fascination so fatal ...  
  
" ... Hajime Saitoh and Aoshi Shinomori." Kondo-sensei said.  
  
And they glanced away from me, freeing me from their spell.  
  
I immediately took a huge gulp of breath, like a drowning victim gasping for air.   
  
I had not even realized I was holding my breath.   
  
Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I had the sudden and incomprehensible urge to run back home, to tell Jiya the whole story, so he could reassure me that my world remained a safe haven.  
  
The sound of a shrill whistle brought me back to my surroundings, just in time to see Soushi, in his karate gear, on the floor, squaring off against the boy in navy blue.  
  
The one named Hajime Saitoh.   
  
I had never laid my eyes on any student so creepy and dangerous. Violence radiated from Saitoh's burning eyes like nuclear explosions, and his razor sharp features looked ready to cut down anyone who got too close. To add to his air of menace, several strands of tentacle-like hair strayed across his hooded eyes, like ropes ready to snake around the necks of unsuspecting victims.   
  
Victims like Soushi.   
  
"Be careful." I yelled out.  
  
But before the sentence could completely leave my lips, I saw Saitoh slip behind Soushi, and delivering a roundhouse kick to Soushi's unprotected back.   
  
My heart jumped into my throat.   
  
If Saitoh's kick connected, it could cripple Soushi for life. A strike like that, to the spine, was so fatal that all karate tournaments banned it.  
  
How could anyone commit such an atrocity just to win a practice match?   
  
I started racing forward, to try to save Soushi, even though I knew I would never get there in time.  
  
Seconds had never ticked by so slow. Or so fast. Soushi's safety danced before me like a mirage, always an arm's length away.  
  
"No!!!!" I watched in horror as Saitoh's attack closed in relentlessly, until less than a hair's width separated it from Soushi's spine.   
  
I squeezed my eyes shut. I could not bear to watch. I didn't have the courage to face Soushi's body, lying mangled and half dead on the floor.  
  
"I will not tolerate this type of behavior in my class!" I could hear Kondo-sensei shouting in the background.  
  
And I gathered enough courage to slowly open my eyes again. Soushi was crouched in a defensive stance, looking very much uninjured and alive.   
  
I should have known that Soushi could defend himself perfectly, even against such an underhanded attack. Nonetheless, I squealed in delight and gave him a huge hug. "You are alive!"  
  
Soushi smiled, "I am all right."  
  
Behind me, I could hear Kondo-sensei's angry words to Saitoh. "Where did you learn your karate, boy?"   
  
"If I had already learned karate, what do I need you for?" Saitoh answered, biting and sarcastic.   
  
Not a bit apologetic for almost killing someone. What a psycho! No wonder I got those bad vibes. It was my instincts telling me to stop that monster before he could hurt anyone else.  
  
I jumped up, ready to give that sneaky bastard a piece of my mind.   
  
But Soushi held me back. "Don't. No one was hurt."   
  
No thanks to Saitoh. What that jerk did was dangerous and stupid, and I wasn't about to let him get away with it. But when Soushi realized I didn't want to give in, he added, "Saitoh didn't know the rules. Kondo-sensei said 'fight', and he fought."  
  
How like Soushi to say good things about everyone, including a monster that had tried to hurt him. Soushi was too nice. I felt it my duty, as his friend, to prevent others from walking all over him.   
  
"Please, for me?" Soushi pleaded and gave me one of his huge guileless smiles.  
  
A smile I could never say 'no' to.  
  
So I clumped back to the spectator lines instead.  
  
Which brought Shinomori onto the mat next.   
  
This time, Kondo-sensei exerted extra caution. "Do you know karate?"   
  
"Yes, and my style is kempo." Aoshi answered.  
  
I could hear a collective sigh of relieve from my fellow classmates. The incident with Saitoh had really shaken everyone.   
  
At Kondo-sensei's gesture, Aoshi took the floor against Soushi. They faced each other and bowed.  
  
"Fight." Kondo-sensei yelled.  
  
And both participants immediately sprang into action.   
  
Forward step, punch. Sidestep, jab. But unlike Saitoh, who personified explosive power, Aoshi flowed like streaming water. The wonder of his movements alone took my breath away. So swift, so smooth - at times, Aoshi almost looked like he was in multiple places at once.   
  
The guy took karate to the level of an art. And with such a purity of style too. What a contrast to that psychopath.   
  
Aoshi even managed to hold his own against Soushi.   
  
I could feel the growing excitement in my classmates. About four points in, everyone jumped to their feet and started cheering, several of them had even ventured into illegal wagering.   
  
We hadn't seen such a close match since the state championship two years ago, where Soushi first earned his title.  
  
But all too soon, Kondo-sensei blew his whistle and ended the sparring - to the disappointment of all. But even that couldn't dampen our pleasure. With an additional champion like Shinomori, we would win our division for sure this year. In fact, some people had already started the victory celebration.   
  
Shinomori had earned himself a roomful of admirers.  
  
He and Soushi faced each other again and bowed, bringing a formal end to their match.   
  
And the beginning of our informal welcoming festivities.  
  
We all cheered, and I was about to join the others on the floor mats congratulating Shinomori when his gaze swept past the crowd.  
  
So empty, so cold, it felt as if he had looked right through us and judged us to be no more significance than pieces of furniture.  
  
All the feelings of dread flooded back. I had thought those horrible vibes had come from Saitoh, who had shown himself as an obvious predator.  
  
But I was wrong.  
  
Of the two, Shinomori was by far more dangerous. I had met men who had been trained to kill, but Shinomori was different. Deader. It was almost like he had no soul, no common connection with rest of humanity.  
  
A classic characteristic of a sociopath.   
  
I backed away and fled into the girls' locker room.   
  
What was that? I had never felt so bewildered in my life.  
  
Maybe ... maybe the rumors were true ...  
  
And I had just met, face-to-face, with two natural born killers. 


	3. Killers In Our Midst

Chapter 3: Killers In Our Midst

I retrieved my backpack from beneath the wooden benches and managed to drag myself out of the cold and empty locker room just as the bell rang overhead, signaling the start of lunch. This was my favorite "class" of the day, and I typically raced towards the cafeteria at my topmost speed. 

But not today. 

I simply couldn't shake the confusion and the dread from my first encounter with Hajime Saitoh and Aoshi Shinomori. Their empty gazes still haunted me; their eyes reminded me of a serial killer's - no compassion, no compunction. I had never thought it possible that someone my age could already be that cold.

I trekked wearily through the endless corridors towards the cafeteria. The journey had never felt so long. All the other students rushed past me, overflowing with youth and innocent bliss.

It made me wanted to warn them at the top of my lungs, to tell them to flee for their lives.

There were killers, KILLERS, in our midst. How could the school let such an awful thing happen? How did they plan to explain their gross negligence to our parents?

I could feel the load of the world on my shoulders, for only I recognized the predators lurking among us. I suddenly realized how alone I was at my task. 

I staggered to our regular lunch table in the dinning hall, heaved my backpack onto the wooden tabletop, and collapsed into a chair under the pure enormity of my duty - only to be faced with the sad reality that, at the end my tough journey, I had no one to share my troubles with.

Oh, Tokio, Tokio, wherefore art thou Tokio? 

How I prayed that she would come to my rescue soon.

With a heavy heart, I unzipped my backpack and took out my lunch - a warm can of soda and a cold bologna sandwich that Okon had packed for me the night before. I took out the sandwich, tore it roughly in half, and set aside the bigger piece for Tokio. She had really taken a liking to my sandwiches for some strange reason. She said that she enjoyed the "home cooked" quality of my lunches, but why she would consider prepackaged cold cuts and store bought white bread "home cooking" was something I would never understand. But I saved half of my sandwich for her anyways. Tokio was my best friend, and we always looked out for each other.

I bit into my sandwich and immediately wished I didn't. The bread tasted like cardboard, and the lettuce was M.I.A. People must have forgotten to go shopping again, it happened all the time in my household. My pathetic lunches made the greasy cafeteria food look nutritious by comparison.

Click, click, click, click, the sound of high heels striking the wooden floor announced Tokio's arrival, amid her fleet of knights. 

Thump! One of the boys dropped a pile of textbooks on the table, but unlike usual, Tokio did not immediately seat herself across from me. Instead, she announced imperially to her admirers, "Misao and I are going to be busy for the next fifteen minutes, so watch our stuff."

Then without waiting for a response from me, she grabbed my arm and started pulling me backwards, to the exit. She gave me no warning whatsoever, so I didn't even have a chance to stand up. To save myself, I had to scramble for footing while the chair beneath me careened wildly towards the ground. I managed to narrowly avoid cracking my skull open, but the chair was not so lucky. It crashed to the ground with such an earth-shattering force, it plunged the entire cafeteria into a dead silence. 

During which time, all eyes turned to stare at me. 

I felt like such a klutz, and I wanted to disappear into thin air. But Tokio continued pulling me along, oblivious to the intense scrutiny. So I tried to hide behind her instead.

Until we cleared the cafeteria. 

"Where are we going?" I asked as we strode down the hallway.

"We are going to meet Chou."

Our resident scalper Chou? "We've been in school for less than a day, when did you find the time to buy tickets from him?"

"I called him on his cell a week ago."

"But buying scalper tickets is illegal."

"So? What's the worst that can happen? I get caught, and the school calls my parents. Big deal. I would have graduated by the time my parents get around to speaking with them."

I, unfortunately, could not claim the same. Jiya would kill me if he found out that I had done something illegal. But before I could point that out, I spotted Chou and Yumi talking down the hallway, by the lockers. I immediately tried to steer Tokio away. I didn't need to be a diplomat to know that Yumi and Tokio should not be allowed in the same vicinity without U.N. peacekeepers. Unfortunately, I couldn't move fast enough, and Tokio and Yumi caught sight of each other. Once that happened, even the threat of a nuclear-fallout could not deter them from launching all out offensives.

"Eeew, I smell a teacher's pet." Yumi wrinkled her nose at Tokio as we approached. "You are stinking up the hallway, witch, so get lost."

But instead of giving Yumi a black eye for the insult, like I would have, Tokio simply treated Yumi like a piece of cheap furniture beneath notice; that, to my satisfaction, enraged Yumi more than anything I could have done. 

"Ignore me if you want, witch." Yumi snarled. "But if you are here for the concert tickets, you are too late. Chou said that I could have them instead." 

"Is that what he said to you in bed?" Tokio mocked with her perfect southern belle snobbery, while I silently cheered her on. "Yumi dear, you really have to stop believing all your customer's pillow talk and learn to charge them upfront. Otherwise, some of them may refuse to pay for the cheap lay afterwards." 

Yumi's upper lip curled in rage, and she turned red like an overripe tomato. "You are only saying that 'cause you are jealous, Tokio DEAR. Everyone knows that the boys are after you for your family connections. You can't pay them enough to touch you, much less sleep with you." 

"I wouldn't know," Tokio shrugged. "Unlike you, I am not desperate enough to find out. Is that why you are sleeping with a mummy? Because no boy would touch you - you are fat." 

"And ugly too!" I added as a show of support. So what if all the football players thought that Yumi was gorgeous? No one that mean should be considered pretty.

Besides, I wasn't far of the mark. As soon as the insult left my lips, Yumi transformed into this hideous monster with glowing yellow eyes, sharp jagged fangs, and bloody red claws. I wished all the boys were here to witness Yumi's true nature - it would certainly give them second thoughts before making her the prom queen.

"Wait 'till I scratch you eyes out. Even a mummy won't want you then." Yumi hissed at us.

I held up my fist in reply, "Want me to give you a new nose job?"

That changed Yumi's mind about attacking us real quick; instead, she grabbed Chou, and instantly transformed back into I-am-your-fantasy-come-true-playmate mode.

How underhanded!

"Chou dear, you said those tickets are mine, remember?" Yumi ran her index finger suggestively down Chou's jaw line, while snuggling up against him. "My boyfriend, Shishio, will be most pissed if he and me don't go the concert together. You wouldn't want that, would you?" 

"No, of course not," Chou smiled down at Yumi like the awestruck doofus he was, only to suffer from whiplash as Tokio grabbed him by his arm and swung him around. 

"You will hand me MY tickets NOW, or do you prefer to face my wrath instead?" 

Which only caused Yumi to start clinging to Chou even tighter, like poison ivy. "Chou dear, you wouldn't want to piss off Shishio, he may burn down everything you own!" 

"Which would be nothing compared to what I will do to you. By the time I am done, you will have nothing left for Shishio to burn." Tokio gave Chou her special smile - the same one she gave to those dumb college jocks that were harassing us at the café, right before she had the police arrest them all.

But unlike those stupid jocks, Chou knew exactly what Tokio could do. So he wisely chose to back away instead. 

And got absolutely nowhere. Tokio and Yumi had boxed him in. 

Poor guy. 

Crime really doesn't pay.

"Misao?" Chou nearly dropped to his knees and begged me.

I ignored him. He deserved his fate for running a criminal enterprise, and for trying to cheat Tokio. 

"I'm sure there is a better way of settling this." Chou tried to squirm his way out a problem of his own making like the worm he was. "I would love nothing more than to give the concert tickets to both of you." 

Yumi and Tokio both narrowed their eyes at his comment. We had all learned better than to trust a scoundrel like him. 

Probably noticing our increasingly black mood, Chou tried to placate us by putting on a fake smile, which looked neither friendly nor trustworthy, and was beginning to resemble a leer with every passing second. "The concert isn't for another month, so why don't we turn this into a contest? The winner gets two tickets free on the house." 

By this point, I had had enough of Chou's double talk. I was ready to smash his face in for being such a cheating and lying scumbag, and I wasn't even his customer. "What's preventing me from beating you up and taking the tickets now?" I challenged - not that I was a thief. Those tickets belonged to Tokio, so I was only helping her get what was rightfully hers. 

"Are you afraid of losing, Misao?" Chou asked. "My contest involves a lot of investigation, and I thought you were the best. But maybe Yumi is better ..."

No one in this school was better than me! Maybe except Soushi ... but definitely not Yumi. I could beat Yumi in my sleep!

"It's settled then." Chou gave us another slimy smile, and as much as I hated to see Chou get his way, I hated to see Yumi win even more. "My sources tell me that one of our new students is a murderer, so ... whoever can prove which one is the killer first, wins." 

"That's easy. I can give you the name by end of the week. My boyfriend, Shishio, knows all the criminals in the area." Yumi smirked triumphantly at us, like dating the head of the local criminal ring was something to be proud of.

"We'll see." I smirked back. There was no way I was going to lose to the girlfriend of a second rate criminal. 

Then, with another look of mutual hatred, Tokio and I parted ways with Yumi and Chou.

"Let's call the police, I am sure they've got the information we want." I said to Tokio.

"There is no need to call them. Hajime Saitoh is guilty, I am sure of it. I met him in my first period calculus class, and he is the type of psychopath who could kill someone in cold blood without batting an eye."

By the conviction in Tokio's voice, I knew she had yet to meet our other new friend. "Aoshi Shinomori is the type of sociopath that could gun down the whole school without a change of expression."

That stopped Tokio in her tracks. She must have realized then that we really didn't have a primary suspect, and that we might be dealing with dangerous criminals. However, knowing all that did nothing to deter us from our path. We never dreamt that anything could hurt us - we believed we were invincible.

But we didn't know then, what we know now. 


	4. Economics of Schooling

Chapter 4: Economics of Schooling

We got back to the cafeteria right as the bell shrieked overhead, demanding an end to our lunch and forcing me to choose between finishing my most important meal of the day - lunch - or getting to class on time.

School was so cruel! This was child abuse!

But I had no time to stage a protest. So I quickly seized my half eaten sandwich and crammed it into my mouth, only to remember why I didn't finish it in the first place. I swiftly switched to my Coke to wash down the lump it formed in my throat. 

Hahhh ... I sighed in relief. Anything could taste decent with enough soda.

But as much as I would have enjoyed savoring the sweet flavor of my Coke, I was a high school student, and high school students weren't allowed to properly enjoy anything! Besides, Tokio and her entourage were already taking off, so I had to scramble to catch up. At least Tokio had directed her knights to carry my books and backpack, so I didn't have to scramble that much.

Like I said, Tokio and I always looked out for each other.

And thanks to Tokio's superior sense of timing and organization, we managed to get to our economics class just as the bell rang again.

"Take a seat!" The teacher yelled over the general chaos of classroom.

Everyone ignored him.

Economics was the single class that was required of all juniors, so it was the only time we got to see all our classmates. On top of that, it WAS the first day of school and we all had a lot of gossip to catch up on. But after several minutes of hollers, enticements, and the threat of seat assignment, everyone finally decided to listen and tried to find places to sit.

Tokio and I ended up settling for two seats next to each other - seats that were as far from Yumi and her gang as possible, without being in the first or last row. Our careful strategy took almost ten minutes to implement because we not only had to clearly mark the borders of our influence, but also negotiate favorable exchanges in territory with neighboring powers. Seating was a complicated art. One look at an individuals' placement in the room, and you could easily identify their loyalty to the different factions of our student body. The nerds always seized the first row, the troublemakers the last; Yumi's gang had claimed the left side of the room, and we the right. Those that had no clear affiliations got sandwiched in the middle, acting like a buffer zone.

Jiya had called this: gang warfare on a miniature scale. Tokio had termed it: practice for Senate floor arrangements. I labeled it: IFF - Identification Friend or Foe.

Which would have been accurate if I was a military woman. 

But high school students switched their loyalties like they changed shirts, and with so much backstabbing and double-crossing, it would have made international espionage look dull.

Except, on occasion, there were behaviors from individuals that would have puzzled even the KGB.

Like the way Soushi was choosing his seat.

He actually waited for Saitoh to find a chair then intentionally sat down right next to that psychopath.

In the very last row! 

The haven for hoodlums! 

But Soushi was no hoodlum. He was a model student. Most of the time I had to stop him from volunteering to sit in the front row.

What happened to him! Had he become enthralled and corrupted by Saitoh's aura of depravity and danger in such a short time?

Noooo!  
I refused to sit idly by while Soushi fell under Saitoh's black spell. So I waved frantically at Soushi instead, and tried to get him to come and sit by me. But he only smiled and shook his head, pointing out that the seat next to me was already occupied.

Which was hardly an excuse. We both knew how good Tokio was at evicting people. If Soushi had wanted it, Tokio could create ten empty seats in ten seconds.

I was not about to give up that easily. 

Soushi should know better than to hang out with the wrong crowd, especially if he planned to follow his father's footsteps and join the FBI.

I rose to my feet and was about to march over and drag Soushi away from Saitoh (by force if necessary) when Tokio, attracted by my frantic activities, asked, "What are you doing?" 

"I am trying to save Soushi from that psychopath." I hissed angrily. 

Tokio immediately followed my gaze and assessed the situation; however, she didn't seem to share my concern. She actually nodded approvingly. "Soushi is certainly his father's son, always trying to protect the public good. I am sure he is only sitting there so he can keep an eye on the psychopath."

Hmmm ... I had never thought about it that way. Maybe I should move next to Shinomori so I could stop him if he ever showed up in class with a semi-automatic.

"This proves that Soushi agrees with me," Tokio grinned eagerly, "Soushi must think that Saitoh is the greater danger, that's why he is not sitting next to Shinomori."

"Soushi only chose Saitoh because Saitoh had just tried to kick his spine in. If someone had tried to kill me, I'd want to keep an eye on him too. But that doesn't make Saitoh more dangerous than Shinomori."

My little bombshell melted Tokio's smile, and she started gaping at me in astonishment. "Saitoh had tried to kill Soushi!"

Tokio's voice shot up an octave. I had to quickly sit back down and try to calm her. I didn't want to attract our suspects' attentions; it would needlessly complicate our investigation. I also didn't want to attract our teacher's attention; it could really complicate my live.

"Soushi is fine." I said soothingly. "Soushi can take good care of himself." Which was more than I could say for us. Not only couldn't I defend Tokio against them, I probably couldn't even create a good enough opening for us to get away.

I shuddered at the nerve-wrecking possibilities.

"If attempted murder doesn't make Saitoh dangerous, what does he have to do for you to consider him so?" Tokio asked.

"I didn't say that Saitoh wasn't dangerous." I clarified my position. "I only said that trying to break Soushi's spine in didn't make Saitoh any more dangerous than Shinomori."

"If you say so," Tokio spoke like a politician dealing with a lobbyist too obtuse to be reasoned with, but too valuable to offend.

Not that I blame her. I didn't know how to explain my intuitions to her. Or even to myself. I had never had such an overpowering reaction to someone before. 

"But look at Shinomori," Tokio turned towards the back corner of the room and stared at the subject of our discussion. "He is too cute to be a murderer."

Judging from that distance, I couldn't help but agree with her. Shinomori was handsome. He had a face that could have easily landed him as the cover model of fashion magazines. He had flawless skin that Yumi only dreamed of, clear blue eyes that spoke of arctic skies, and black hair that was even glossier than mine! 

He could have put the statue of David to shame!

And all of my female classmates would have envied the lucky girl he took to the prom.

"Shinomori has to be innocent." Tokio persuaded. "He looks like a normal, intelligent, and charming sort of guy."

"So did Ted Bundy." Except Shinomori was even more handsome and attractive than that infamous serial killer. 

Shinomori was the classic "dark and mysterious stranger" that romance novels wrote about. Thousands of beautiful girls would soon be swooning at his feet, and millions more would gladly fling themselves off cliffs to please him.

I giggled at the image and twirled the end of my long braid around my finger.

Tokio must have noticed my change of mood, because an excited grin returned to her face. "Shinomori is clearly innocent. There is no need to over think this, Misao. We are in high school, not CIA. We are dealing with teenage boys, not career killers." 

"Career killers are called assassins. Murderer is precisely the term we use for teenage felons and budding serial killers."

Tokio opened her mouth in rebuttal, but the teacher chose that precise moment to start class. So our discussion was forced to wait for a more opportune time. 


	5. Up the Hill

Author's note: I apologize for not replying to reviews (and for taking a very long time to respond to anything). Unfortunately, I do not have enough hours in a day to both write stories and compose replies, but please know that I read and re-read every review. Your feedback means the world to me, and I try my best to improve based upon your suggestions and criticisms. Thank you for all your support over the years.

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Chapter 5: Up the Hill

A better time to reevaluate our murder suspects never arrived. The bell of hell soon screeched overhead, forcing me to scurry to my next class. Since Tokio and I had no more classes in common, I had to suffer through rest of my school day all alone. And after the umpteenth repetition of: "Hi, my name is …, and I am a …", I was ready to surrender to the call of freedom and flee from this place forever!

But in a cruel twist of fate, my detention notice caught up with me at that precise moment, destroying all my hopes and dreams. That tiny slip of paper robbed me an hour of my precious youth and forced me to sit in a windowless room and watch as my life trickled away with each shudder of the wall clock.

Tick … tock … tick ...… tock …...… tick ...…… tock ...…… tick …...……...………………………………………

The clock's monotonous pulse thudded like the poor man's version of life support, and just as I was about to declare myself dead from a brain hemorrhage, the door to the detention hall bursted open.

"Pack your stuff Misao. We are going up to the Hill." Tokio strode into the classroom and announced her edict.

Without waiting for further details, I jumped up and complied. Due to surprise, the authority of Tokio's voice, apathy, or a combination of all three, the detention hall teacher didn't even try to stop me. I snatched up my backpack and tore out of the room like it was on fire.

And I kept on running.

I needed to put as much distance between me and my prison as possible before someone realized that I still had ten minutes left in my detention. I refused to go back to my cell! My sanity could not handle anymore of that torture. Like the namesake of my high school had said: give me liberty or give me death. Our founding fathers totally understood the students; I wished the teachers could too! But the educational system had so institutionalized our teachers that they had lost all ability to empathize. Their indifference had forced many students to flee for their very survival.

Misfortunate students like me!

So my feet flew across the length and width of the campus until I escaped the tyranny of the school and entered the student parking lot, where I spotted Tokio's bright red Porche blazing like a huge stop sign. I screeched to a halt in front of that shining symbol of freedom and gulped down the sweet air of liberty.

Ahh … I exhaled in pure bliss.

Then it dawned on me. Had I just agreed to go up to the Hill with Tokio?! Despite the pleasant sounding words, a trip up to the Hill wasn't a short stroll in the local forest; it was a long hike all the way to Washington DC. At this time of the day, the Beltway would be an absolute parking lot! We would be trapped in a car, stuck in middle of traffic, choking on exhaust fumes until midnight! My freedom, my health, and my peace of mind would be obliterated!

I screamed out in mindless horror.

Then I had to wait for another ten minutes until Tokio finally strolled into view. But before I could petition for an early release, Tokio's grave gaze seized mine. "We must head up to Capitol Hill right now. We need to find the murderers. Lives depend on it, and my father is our last hope. I've already contacted the local police and the secret service, and they both refused to help us. So the only way we can stop this deadly danger is if we convince my father to assign someone to help us. Isn't it our privilege and responsibility to do everything in our power to save innocent lives?"

Innocent lives …

Tokio's hands gripped my arms while her plea gripped my heart. How could I have been so selfish? I could feel shame creeping down my face, to my neck, into my toes, until the heat of it sent me scrambling into Tokio's car. As soon as I shut the door, Tokio's foot jammed down on the gas pedal, and we peeled out of the parking lot at 70 mph.

"So you think that my father will get the secret service to help us?" Tokio asked jubilantly as she lowered the windows and allowed the summer breeze to rush through her long dark hair.

From her exhilaration, I could tell what she had expected the answer to be a definitive "yes", and as much as I disliked being the messenger of bad news, I hated watching her get all pumped up for disappointment - especially when it came to her parents.

"No," I looked away and pretended to be busy adjusting my seatbelt; I couldn't face the inevitable pain in her eyes. "Your father will never take our word over the secret service's."

"What?!" Tokio shouted in surprise.

Before I could even process what was happening, I heard her foot slam on the brakes.

The car screeched to a bone-jarring stop, and I shrieked as my body hurtled towards the windshield at 70 mph. I could see the whole world streak past me. Then right before my body crashed into the dash board, the seatbelt snapped taut, saving me from a certain death. I took a shuddering breath, sagged in relief against the belt's comforting bounds, and gave a long silent prayer of thanks for the invention of the seatbelt, the lack of traffic on the road, and the great feeling of being alive.

"Why are we going all the way to DC if my father is not going to help us?" Tokio's angry demand interrupted my most spiritual moment of the year.

"You said that we should do everything in our power to –"

"Forget about what I said!"

Normally, the image of innocent students falling victim to two madmen would be very difficult to forget, but my brain was still too preoccupied with the picture of me lying dead in middle of the road to process much else.

"Damn it!" Tokio slammed her palm against the steering wheel as her language deteriorated into vocabulary that warranted a thousand years of detention.

Then without warning, Tokio took her foot off the brakes and slammed it back down on the gas pedal. The car jetted down the road with screeching tires – which sent me screeching too as the sudden acceleration crushed me back into my seat. We zoomed towards the horizon with a velocity that could've set NASA rocket scientists burning with envy.

"If my father doesn't want to help me, then I would simply have to make him." Tokio said with that dead-calm narrowed-eyed look.

I had seen that look only once before, and it was once too many. Oh, she would win in the end, of that I had no doubt. But I couldn't possibly survive another war between her and her father. The mere thought of being caught in the middle nearly sent the sane part of me screaming for Tokio to stop so I could get out of her car and walk back ten miles to my own (while the insane part of me just wanted to jump out of the still moving car). In my panic, my mouth opened and words started pouring out independent from the rest of me. "Pressuring your father into involving the secret service is useless. There are better ways he can help us."

Tokio turned and studied me closely. She seemed surprised by my revelation. Heck, I was surprised by my revelation (and the steadiness of my voice and the sensibility behind my proposal).

"The secret service is unlikely to mess up on a routine background check," I added, "so to catch our killer we need to look where they didn't."

Tokio nodded in agreement and her foot eased off the gas paddle.

I sighed in relief and made a mental note to never upset her while she was the behind the wheel.

"So what's next?" Tokio asked.

I had to take a minute to think. Coming up with brilliant master plans was hard work! "Next we find out why two teenagers would want to transfer to a new school in their junior year."

"Cause they got expelled from their own?"

… That hadn't been my first thought, but it made a lot of sense. "Unfortunately, your father will not have that kind of information." I said and filed away Tokio's idea for later analysis. "People also tend to change schools if their family had moved to a new area -"

"For new jobs. Jobs created by the recent elections, new government openings, or even lobbying positions …" Tokio smiled, "Information that my father's staff is paid to know."

"If we can eliminate the guy who has a good reason to be here –"

"Then we can concentrate on the other one!"

Tokio and I gave each other high-fives. We made a fabulous team. And the glow over our marvelous plan lasted me for a good half an hour, until the grim realities of DC traffic set in. No plan, no matter how extraordinary, could be worth this torture! I tried passing the time by calling home and telling Okon that I'd be late, by fiddling with the stereo system, and by having witty conversations with Tokio. But there were only so many MP3s in existence, absolutely nothing interesting on the airwaves (satellite radio was like cable TV: a million channels of boredom), and it was difficult to maintain a witty conversation with Tokio once she started cursing, cutting people off, and swerving in and out of traffic like a bumper car racer. Just when I grew certain that we'd both die victims of a multi-car pile up (and road rage), Tokio finally parked in front of her parents' place.

Hallelujah! I almost kissed the ground. This must be what the colonists felt like when they finally reached dry land.

We got out of the car, and I slowly hobbled after Tokio. I would normally have raced towards the kitchen for life-saving food and water after hours of starvation, but my right leg had fallen asleep some time within the last hour of our voyage (while the rest of me had gone numb way before then). Still, I somehow managed to limp my way into the family room while Tokio went into the kitchen and spoke to the chef about dinner for us. Fortunately, before I could become the poster child for UNICEF's war against hunger, the rich aroma of soup and beef and fish and corn and strawberries and chocolate and sugar wafted into the air. I jumped up and hopped into the dinning room. Upon spotting the mouth-watering feast laid out before me, I grabbed a serving spoon and started wolfing down all the food before the table could even be set. The servant gave me a disapproving look, but I really didn't need three sets of silverware. One spoon was good enough to last me from appetizer to dessert.

As usual, every bite of that meal was worth gaining ten pounds for. If only I could eat like this everyday (I would need a full-time job just to afford a new wardrobe), but if only I could eat like this everyday!

All too soon, I had drained every last bit of food from my collection of plates, cups, saucers, and bowls. I gave my spoon one last lingering lick and leaned back to relax on my cloud of pure bliss. I discreetly loosened the top button of my shorts and watched as Tokio did everything with her dinner except eat it. I didn't know how Tokio could pass up such delicious morsels. Being a size zero wasn't worth it!

"Do you need help finishing your dinner?" I offered. It would be a sin to waste all that fabulous food. There were starving children in … ahh … wherever.

Tokio smiled and gestured for me to dig in. I immediately took over her crème brulee. Of course, I had to take a break (for about an hour) before I could finish the whole thing; however, before the last spoonful could complete its journey into my mouth, my eyes had already strayed towards her plateful of chocolate chip cookies.

No! No! No! I had to tell myself. I knew if I ate anymore, I would end up with a humungous tummy-ache that would make me wish I had stapled my stomach shut; but my eyes refused to focus elsewhere! Thankfully, before my hands could bypass my brain and conspire with my taste buds, Tokio's father walked through the front door. He had saved me from the agonizing decision of eating another piece of melt-in-my-mouth-and-send-me-to-heaven chocolate chip cookie or having my stomach explode from gluttony.

"Hello father." Tokio greeted in that ultra genteel voice of hers.

All my muscles tensed up at her tone as my fingers spastically latched onto a fresh piece of cookie.

"What are you doing here?" Tokio's father asked, and my stomach started to tumble and roll.

I knew I should not have eaten so much!

"I need you to get the secret service to investigate the two new students that joined my school this semester."

I turned and stared at Tokio in open mouthed surprise. I thought that we agreed to only ask for a list of newcomers to the DC area. When did Tokio changer her mind about our game plan?

"Don't be ridiculous. The secret service isn't your personal servant." Tokio's father rebuked.

"Aren't you going to ask why I need the secret service's help?"

"I am tired of you lying to get attention. Now go home."

I tried to close my ears. For some reason, arguments in Tokio's family always managed to get so loud without anyone ever raising their voice. I could never understand why Tokio and her father attacked each other the way they do. If my parents were still alive …

I shove that thought aside – it always made me feel disloyal thinking about my parents in that context, as if I found my current family lacking in some way. Jiya, Okon, Omasu, Shiro, and Shuro had given me everything I could ever want and more.

Still … if my parents were alive …

"Go to hell." Tokio snarled.

And the exchange between Tokio and her father devolved from there - into accusations, counter-accusations, name-calling, finger-pointing, and a free-for-all hate-spewing confrontation.

I thrust the cookie into my mouth and grinded it between my teeth. I didn't know what to do (I never knew what to do), so I tried to take comfort in the sweet chocolate melting in my mouth.

The voices around me climbed towards a staccato edge, and their clipped tones sounded almost like machine guns firing. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to ignore the fighting. In the darkness, I could see the Time Magazine cover of the survivors of the last school shooting and the apparitions of my classmates begging for my help.

And I could see the faces of my parents …

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" I yelled.

The room fell silent. I opened my eyes and saw that both their gazes had turned to me. I froze. I had never done this before; I didn't even know what came over me.

"We are not lying to get attention. We really need your help, Mr. Secretary. Both of the new students in our class may be murderers, and I don't what to do. I don't want this to cause an argument between you and Tokio, but I know I can't live with myself if I did nothing and they end up killing everyone at school." The words gushed out of my mouth, and I realized how foolish I sounded. I had wanted to give a sophisticated and persuasive argument (like Tokio would have), but I ended up sounding like a whiny child.

I hung my head and shoved the cookie back into my mouth.

"I see …" Tokio's father said and I could feel his gaze drilling a hole through the top of my skull. "Unfortunately, I cannot get the secret service to help you as much as I may want to."

At his words, elation filled me (okay, so the "I can't help you" part wasn't great, but at least he had listened and wanted to help!). From his reaction to Tokio, I was afraid that he would throw me out of his house for asking.

Instead, he continued. "Tell me everything."

Words began tumbling out of my mouth. At first, they made no sense (not even to me), but eventually I managed to recount my run-ins with the new students. Tokio soon joined in with her tale. Could you believe that our new classmate was actually convicted of murder but was set free because of a technicality? A technicality! The kid must have had the best lawyers money can buy. To top it all, Tokio had overheard that information from the teachers. The teachers! The school administration knew the danger it placed all of us in and hid that knowledge from everyone!

I felt a chill crawling down my spine.

Finally, several minutes after Tokio and I had fallen silent, Tokio's father said, "The fact that the rumors have originated from the teachers lend them more credence than any parent can be comfortable with, but rumors being what they are …" Tokio's father rubbed his temples, "We need to keep in mind that in the court of law, a man is innocent until proven guilty; in the court of public opinion, a man is guilty until someone else gets convicted. So when a rumor says that a man is freed because of a technicality, that technicality may be a verdict of innocence. There is also the problem with most laymen not being able to differentiate between murder, manslaughter, criminal negligence, depraved indifference, or any of the fine shades in between. They also tend to blur the distinction between the perpetrator, the accomplice, and someone who merely aided and abetted."

He then continued on with even more technical information. I nodded sagely through it all even though I have no clue what he was talking about. The few SAT level vocabularies I did understand made no sense when strung together. All I could figure out was that our wonderful new classmates might have been guilty of a whole array of nasty crimes that the court wasn't able to convict him of (otherwise Tokio's father would have told us not to worry and sent us home with a plate of cookies.)

"So you will get the secret service to investigate?" Tokio asked.

He shook his head. "The secret service does not have the bandwidth, not with the new Homeland security and all."

My heart fell.

"But I may be able to do better than that." He said, and my heart soared. "If your classmate was formally charged, there will be a court record. I will ask my assistants to look into it."

"Thanks dad!" Tokio smiled at her father.

They looked so sweet; I wished they did it more often. But the moment passed all too soon. We wrote down the names of the new kids for him, asked him to check if anyone by those surnames had moved to town recently, and had a couple more cookies (okay, so I doggie bagged an entire plate of cookies). But then it got late, and I wanted to flee before Tokio and her father's temporary goodwill wore out. So we soon headed back towards school. We laughed and giggled and told jokes the whole drive.

We could feel the late summer breeze taking away all our troubles as we celebrated the height of our youths and all the fantastic things the world had showered upon us! But as Jiya liked to say: Luck is a fickle mistress and only fools believe theirs will never change.


End file.
